PENELOPE STUTTERHEIME

(b. 1958 Cape Town, South Africa)

Depicting inner landscapes has long been South African artist Penelope Stutterheime’s preoccupation. Drawing inspiration from dreams and the unconscious, her layered and textured oil paintings use impasto and intensely vibrant colour to create mesmerising abstract works.

Conveyed through hue and form, the images are a representation of transformation. Her paintings are a portrayal of her own inner spiritual processes, while also interrogating universal consciousness.

The artist explains:

The work reveals a slow unfolding, and a weaving together of states of being. Daniel C. Wahl wrote that “weavers are healers of the unbroken whole – connecting people and place in elegant tapestries of shared meaning and visions of a world that works for all.” My practice engages actively with layering the literal passage of time and formal artistic considerations onto one symbolic surface. The choice of colours represents my own mindscape; in turn I hope to reflect on larger considerations, offering a reconnection and weaving together of humanity’s mindfulness and beyond.

The daughter of a forester, Stutterheime developed her intense love for landscape as a child growing up in Newlands Forest, Cape Town. She studied part-time with the artist Simon Stone and the late Bill Ainslie, one of South Africa’s finest abstractionists, but aside from this is largely self-taught. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions consistently over the past thirty years, and her paintings are included in private and corporate collections around the world. She is based in Cape Town.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023      Hearth, Everard Read, London, UK

2022      Sanctuary, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2019      Mapping the Interior, Everard Read, London, UK

               Mapping, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017      Merging, Everard Read, London, UK

2012      Love Poem, solo show, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2011      Exhale, solo show, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2010      New Works, solo show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2007      Solo exhibition with iArt, Cape Town, South Africa

2005      Solo exhibition with Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023 What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2022 Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2021 Oasis, Everard Read, UK and South Africa

        Spring Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa  

        Transitory Terrain, Everard Read, London, UK

2020 Still, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK and South Africa

         Staring Straight to the Future, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK and South Africa

2019 Southern Aspect, Everard Read, London, UK

         Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2018 Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017 Winter Collection, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017 Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2016 Opening Gallery Exhibition, CIRCA London, London, UK

2015 The Yearning, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2015  Summer Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

          Winter Exhibition, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2013  A Sense of Place, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2012  Winter Show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

          Small Works, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2011  15th Anniversary, group show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2010  Rose Korber Art Salon, Cape Town, South Africa

2009  Rising Up, Myerson Fine Art, London, UK

2008  A Way Through, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2005  Art London with Myerson Fine Art

2000-07 Rose Korber Art Salon, Cape Town, South Africa

2005&06 Group exhibitions with Rose Korber at Grande Provence, Franschhoek, South Africa

2001   Group show, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa